Readahead-fedora is originally developed by Fedora, and contrary to [[ureadahead]], it does not require patching the kernel. It creates a list of files to put in the page cache before they are needed, thus reducing boot time.

Readahead-fedora is originally developed by Fedora, and contrary to [[ureadahead]], it does not require patching the kernel. It creates a list of files to put in the page cache before they are needed, thus reducing boot time.

*{{AUR|quick-init}} in the AUR. Hit the "Go" button to find the package.

+

*{{AUR|quick-boot}} in the AUR.

*[https://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Readahead-fedora Article by ying] in German.

*[https://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Readahead-fedora Article by ying] in German.

Revision as of 18:41, 3 December 2012

Readahead-fedora is originally developed by Fedora, and contrary to ureadahead, it does not require patching the kernel. It creates a list of files to put in the page cache before they are needed, thus reducing boot time.

Directories to ignore while collecting. Anything that is not needed during boot should probably be here to keep the list slimmed down.

Usage

The package installs the file /etc/rc.d/functions.d/readahead. This file will automatically start readahead at the appropriate times, control the collector and all that.

If you have dbus installed, readahead will automatically start it before X starts to avoid any issues.

The file /.readahead should automatically be created when installing the package. This is to let readahead-collector profile your system next boot.

Automated profiling

This is actually really easy, just add a cron job that creates the file /.readahead every month or so.

Manually reprofile the system

There are two ways to do this, either just run

$ touch /.readahead

as root, or you can temporarily add

init=/sbin/readahead-collector

to the kernel line in your bootloader. You should also disable auditd, because auditd deletes all audit rules during boot, which is contraproductive for the collector. Now, you just need to reboot and let the collector profile your system.

Trimming down boot-times

The package edits your inittab to take advantage of the early - later split in readahead-fedora. What it basically does is move these lines around:

Notes

Readahead-fedora uses two steps to read and create the cache, called "early" and "later". Why it does it this way is to have a small, neat cache that it initially reads. This basically contains the basic files needed to boot together with X. After it has read those files and started X, it reads the "later" cache for starting the various daemons and services. This way, it tries to be a bit smarter and dynamic in hiding load times.